______________________________________Obama's "American Promise" is War. Barack Obama has embraced the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT). The Obama-Biden campaign has endorsed the very foundations of the Bush administration's foreign policy agenda: "Go after Osama bin Laden, "take him out".
<B>The rhetoric is softer but the substance is almost identical:

"For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell – but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives. [APPLAUSE]

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And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we’re wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.That’s not the judgment we need. That won’t keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past." (The American Promise, August 28, 2008, Democratic Convention. Denver, emphasis added)

The 9/11 Cover-upThe Democrats have endorsed the "Big Lie". Bin Laden is upheld as the "outside enemy" who threatens the American Homeland. The fact that bin Laden is a US sponsored intelligence asset, created and sustained by the CIA, is never mentioned.
<B>The Obama campaign galvanizes public support for the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT). In the words of Obama's running mate, Joe Biden:

"The fact of the matter is, al-Qaida and the Taliban - the people who have actually attacked us on 9/11 [note: exactly the same wording as in the Obama speech] -- they've regrouped in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and are plotting new attacks. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has echoed Barack's call for more troops and John McCain was wrong and Barack Obama was right." (Joe Biden, Democratic Convention, Denver, August 27, 2008, emphasis added)

</B>In contrast to Iraq, the war on Afghanistan is portrayed by the Obama-Biden campaign as a "Just War", a war of retribution initiated in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks. This concept of the "Just War" in relation to Afghanistan has been echoed by several prominent Liberal and "Progressive" intellectuals: The war on Iraq, on the other hand, is seen as an "illegal war". In October 2001, the attack on Afghanistan was supported by numerous civil society organizations on humanitarian grounds. It is by no means coincidental that the prominent "Leftist" scholars and intellectuals, who failed to address the use of the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to wage war, have expressed their support for Barack Obama. The Nation Magazine and Progressive Democrats for America are indelibly behind the Obama-Biden ticket. The Obama-Biden campaign has endorsed the 9/11 cover-up. Without a shred of evidence, Afghanistan, a nation of 34 million people (the size of Canada), is portrayed as the State sponsor of the 9/11 attacks. This basic premise is accepted by the Democrats. Obama indelibly upholds 9/11 as an act of war and aggression directed against America, thereby justifying a war of retribution directed against "Islamic terrorists" and their state sponsors.

The "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) is the product of a carefully designed military-intelligence agenda, which determines the thrust of US foreign policy.

GWOT is endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats. US intelligence overrides party politics. GWOT is part of the presidential campaign platform of both political parties. Its validity is not questioned, nor are its consequences. The fact that it is predicated on a "Big Lie" is not an issue. Spiraling Defense Spending Both Barack Obama and John McCain have signaled that they will increase overall defense spending, while also revamping the system of Pentagon procurement with a view to reducing cost overruns. (See Bloomberg, June 30, 2008 See also Reuters, August 29, 2008). For FY 2009, the US Defense Department is asking for a $515 billion defense budget plus a separate $70 billion "to cover war costs into the early months of a new administration... Those amounts combined would represent the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II (adjusted for inflation)." (csmonitor.com February 06, 2008)

<B>Obama's message is crystal clear. He endorses the Bush administration's proposed surge in military spending. He wants to spend more money on weapons and troops. Going after bin Laden and the "Global War on Terrorism" constitute his main justification for increased defense spending:

"[M]ore resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11..."

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<B>But at the same time, Obama promises more resources for education and health.

"Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, ... I’ll invest in early childhood education. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. ...

Under the Bush administration, Defense was favored in relation to all other expenditure categories. (See Chart above for FY 2004). Will an Obama administration change the structure of Federal government expenditure?

Will he reduce the absolute size of defense spending which constitutes approximately 47 percent of global defense spending (all countries combined)? The US NATO combined control 70% of global defense spending. (See Chart below)

Guns versus Butter

Visibly Barack Obama does understand the Guns versus Butter dilemma. He fails to address a fundamental macro-economic relationship, namely the issue of public investment in the war economy versus the funding, through tax dollars, of civilian social programs. More broadly, this also raises the issue of the role of the US Treasury and the US monetary system, in relentlessly financing the military industrial complex and the Middle East war at the expense of most sectors of civilian economic activity.

More resources to war and weapons, as proposed by both Obama and McCain, favors the Big Five Defense Contractors (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grunman, Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics), Dick Cheney's Halliburton, British Aerospace, not to mention Blackwater, MPRI et al, at the expense of the civilian sectors, including national, regional and local level economies. Military Spending Creates UnemploymentTax dollars allocated, as promised by Obama, to National Defense and Homeland Security will result in unemployment. In contrast to World War II, the war economy in the 21st Century does not create jobs. The costs of creating jobs in the military industrial complex are abysmally high when compared to the civilian sectors. In turn, the financial resources channeled by the US government to the DoD defense contractors dramatically reduces public expenditure in favor of all other spending categories. Lockeed Martin together with Northrop Grumman have been involved in developing the Joint Fighter program. Based on initial estimates, 5400 direct jobs were created at a unit cost of $37 million per job. (See Michel Chossudovsky, War is Good for Business, Global Research, September 16, 2001). Similarly at Boeing's assembly plant, each job created in the Joint Strike Fighter program costs US taxpayers $66.7 million. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 September 2001). With regard to the F22 Raptor fighter, assembled at Lockheed Martin Marietta's plant in Georgia, the F22 Raptor fighters was estimated to have a unit cost of $85 million. Three thousand (3000) direct jobs were to be created at an estimated cost of $20 million a job. (Ibid) The cost of the program once completed in 2005 was of the order of 62 billion dollars. According to 2008 company figures, roughly 2000 jobs remain tied to the production of the F22. (See Free Republic, March 2008). Two Thousand Jobs created at the Lockheed-Marietta's plant in Georgia at an initial outlay of 31 million dollars per job. Imagine how many jobs you could create with 31 million dollars invested in small and medium sized enterprises across America. These post 9/11 defense expenditures by the Bush administration trigger mass unemployment. Moreover, they are funded by downsizing America's social programs, which in turn contributes to exacerbating the levels of poverty and unemployment. Obama's War EconomyThe Obama campaign accepts the logic of a war economy which triggers unemployment and poverty at home while creating death and destruction in the Middle East war theater. This post 9/11 direction of the US economy has lined the pockets of a handful of defense contractors corporations, while contributing very marginally to the rehabilitation of the employment of specialized scientific, technical and professional workers laid-off by the civilian economy. Not surprisingly, the defense contractors, while favoring John McCain are also firm supporter of Barack Obama.

<B>America's largest military contractor Lockheed Martin (and business partner of Dick Cheney's Halliburton) was present at the Denver Democratic Party Convention, among a vast array of powerful corporate sponsors and lobby groups. According to a company spokesperson:

“Lockheed Martin strongly supports our nation’s political process and candidates that support in general national defense, homeland security, high technology and educational initiatives,” (quoted by Bill van Auken, Democrats convene in Denver amid police state security and a sea of corporate cash, Global Research, August 2008)

</B>The Big LieThe Obama lies are perhaps more subtle than those of George W. But again in substance, we are dealing with a continuum. The "Global War on Terrorism" is an integral part of the Obama campaign. "Islamic terrorists" threaten the American way of life. Al Qaeda and its alleged State sponsors are portrayed as the main threat at home and abroad. The corporate media applauds. No shift in direction.

The doctrine of preemptive war directed against "Islamic terrorists" and their State sponsors remains functionally intact.

The same applies to the post 9/11 nuclear weapons doctrine as first formulated in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Nuclear weapons are on the drawing board of the Pentagon, for use in the Middle East war theater. And the Democrats are fully supportive of preemptive nuclear weapons as a means to protect the American Homeland. Under the "Global War on Terrorism", the Homeland Security apparatus, not to mention the anti-terrorist Patriot legislation, the Big Brother surveillance apparatus would, under a Barack Obama administration, remain intact.

9/11 constitutes for Obama the main justification for waging a humanitarian war in the Middle East and Central Asia. In this regard, his position does not differ from that of the Bush Administration. Withdraw from Iraq, but remain in Afghanistan. Bring the troops back from Iraq. Move them to Afghanistan.

<B>Confront Iran, challenge Russia:

"I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

"Finishing the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban" means extending the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) into new frontiers.

Concretely, the GWOT, which is central to the Obama campaign, provides a pretext and justification for waging a war of conquest, for expanding US influence in the Middle East, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia. Obama-Biden and The "New Cold War"The Obama-Biden campaign is committed to reinforcing US-NATO military presence on the Iran-Afghan border, as well as on Afghanistan's border with China's Xinjiang Uigur autonomous region as well as within Pakistan. Afghanistan is a strategic hub in Central Asia bordering on Iran, the former Soviet Union, China and Pakistan. It is a land bridge and potential oil and gas pipeline corridor which links the Caspian sea basin to the Arabian sea. It is also part of the continued process of militarization and encirclement of the People's Republic of China. The Obama-Biden campaign has also endorsed the "New Cold War". Russia is explicitly identified in Obama's speech as an Aggressor. Iran is identified as nuclear threat, despite ample evidence to the contrary.
<B>Joe Biden, who if elected, would take over from Dick Cheney, considers Russia, China and India as the main threat to America's National Security:

The Bush foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole, with very few friends to help us climb out. And for the last seven years, the administration has failed to face the biggest the biggest forces shaping this century. The emergence of Russia, China and India's great powers, the spread of lethal weapons, the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water. The challenge of climate change and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front in the war on terror.

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Ladies and gentlemen, in recent years and in recent days we once again see the consequences of the neglect, of this neglect, of Russia challenging the very freedom of a new democratic country of Georgia. Barack and I will end that neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its action and we will help Georgia rebuild. I have been on the ground in Georgia, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms, this administration's policy has been an abysmal failure. America cannot afford four more years of this failure. (Democratic Party convention, August 27, 2008, emphasis added)

The militarization of Afghanistan and Pakistan under the GWOT is directed against two overlapping military alliances: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The SCO is a military alliance between Russia and China and several Central Asian former Soviet republics including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran has observer status in the SCO. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which plays a key geopolitical role in relation to transport and energy corridors, operates in close liaison with the SCO. The CSTO regroups the following member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. For Obama-Biden, the war on Iran is still on. The New Cold War is directed against China, Russia and its allies, namely the SCO-CSTO military alliance. In other words, the Democrats have endorsed the New Cold War What Prospects under an Obama Presidency?

Apart from the rhetoric of "bringing the troops home" from war torn Iraq, which may or may be carried out, what distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans? A more articulate, knowledgeable and charismatic President? A more dignified and diplomatic approach to US foreign policy?

An opportunity to the US ruling elite "to present a different face to the world that could revive illusions in its democratic pretensions, not only internationally but within the United States as well." (Patrick Martin, Tensions rise in Democratic contest as Obama nears nomination, Global Research, May 11, 2008) A spurious and counterfeit "humanitarian" approach to Empire, which serves to mask the truth and gain popular support. A less reckless Commander in Chief, who has an understanding of geopolitics and is capable of taking foreign policy decisions.

A more carefully thought out military agenda than that experienced during the Bush administration? But with no substantive shift in direction. A means to quelling mounting dissent and opposition to the ruling corporate establishment by providing the illusion that the Democrats constitute a Real Alternative. A means to sustaining the illusion that African-Americans can move up the social ladder in America and that their fundamental rights are being upheld. A means to undermining real progressive movements by further embedding civil society organizations, trade unions, grass-roots organizations not to mention "Leftist" intellectuals into the realm of the Democratic Party. A distraction from the extensive war crimes committed under successive US administrations.

<DT><CENTER>Motormouth Joe Biden - Warmonger, Wordmonger And Political Hit Man By Webster G. Tarpley8-25-8</CENTER>
<DT><CENTER></CENTER><DT><CENTER><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=555 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width="100%"><DL><DT>WASHINGTON DC -- The vice presidential candidate chosen to run with Obama is Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, a discredited, sleazy, and shopworn political hack -- and therefore an anti-climax for all the callow and feckless youth who got the word via text message at 3am in the morning. The ability of the Trilateral-Bilderberg machine which controls Obama to put up a person like Biden already reflects the further degradation of US political life over the past 9-12 months, largely as a result of Obama's own demagogic, no- issues, personality cult agitation. <DT><DT>A year ago, there was wide agreement in the US middle class that Bush and Cheney should be impeached, that the police state be rolled back, and that the Iraq war should be ended as soon as physically possible. Thanks largely to the advent of the vapid and messianic Obama, these issues have now been thoroughly deflated. Biden is himself an incurable warmonger who voted for the Iraq war and blathered ceaselessly in favor of Bush's aggressive adventure to all who would listen. Naming Biden is a brutal insult to the antiwar majority of the Democratic Party, and Obama is obviously hoping that the Iraq war issue is dead, so nobody will care. Last year, Obama promised that he would work against the mentality that produced Iraq; if anyone incarnates that mentality, it is Biden. Biden is an incurable imperialist and an eager advocate of the discredited Bush-Cheney "war on terror." He even tried to use one of the Democratic debates last year to whip up hysteria in favor of attacking Sudan over the Darfur issue, and with some success. "I went there. I sat in the borders. I went in those camps. They're going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people die. We've got to stop talking and act," Biden postured in Manchester New Hampshire on June 3, 2007 in an apparent call for bombing Sudan, a coup in Khartoum, or an invasion. Incredibly, the crowd applauded wildly. <DT><DT>Biden remains convinced that it is up to the United States to dictate the form of government and economic system of virtually every country in the world. His specialty is blatant interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, with left-cover of soft power issues like human rights and humanitarian concerns furnishing his favorite pretexts. Biden has learned nothing from the Iraq debacle except that Iraq was not the right victim; more appropriate victims and more effective methods will have to be found, argues Biden. The real lesson of Iraq (and Lebanon 2006) is that US-British imperialism and world domination are finished historically, but this is lost on Biden. <DT><DT>Biden is the author of the odious plan to balkanize, partition, and subdivide Iraq into three zones: a Kurdish state designed to carve up Iran, Syria and Turkey as well as Iraq; a landlocked and oil- poor Sunni desert entity; and an oil-rich Shiastan in the south that might absorb the Arabistan or Achwaz province of Iran is a later breakup scenario for Iran. Biden's plan is a continuation of the Bernard Lewis plan to break up the existing states of the Middle East in a way destined to create a mosaic of pseudo- independent, squabbling mini-states or micro-states. This approach places Biden squarely behind the Zbigniew Brzezinski "dignity" doctrine of breaking up the existing nation states of the world in favor of a crazy quilt of micro-states based on ethnic and religious parochialism and particularism; not one of these micro- states could stand up to Exxon-Mobil or JP Morgan Chase. <DT><DT>BIDEN IS MORALLY INSANE ON GEORGIA <DT><DT>Biden's ample track record as an agent provocateur against Russia goes back more than a decade to the time he mobilized his mouth to help demonize Milosevic of Serbia as part of the Albright-Holbrooke- Wesley Clark anti-Russian campaign of those years, which ended with the NATO bombing of Serbia, an act of unprecedented historical vandalism. In the past week, warmonger Biden has rushed to the side of the latest tin pot mini-Mussolini of the Brzezinski-Soros faction, the infamous war criminal and gangster Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia. "I left the country convinced that Russia's invasion of Georgia may be the one of the most significant events to occur in Europe since the end of communism," raved Biden on his return, documenting his own moral insanity by siding with the aggressor. "The claims of Georgian atrocities that provided the pretext for Russia's invasion are rapidly being disproved by international observers, and the continuing presence of Russian forces in the country has severe implications for the broader region," added the Orwellian senator. <DT><DT>BIDEN: $1 BILLION FOR MADMAN SAAKASHVILI <DT><DT>In presenting Biden, Barky reveled in Biden's "tough message" for Russia; we are sure Putin is trembling. Biden wants to prop up the madman Saakashvili with $1 billion of the US taxpayers' money, a gesture which is every bit as obscene as the worst Bush-Cheney excesses. $1 billion would get us on the road to fully funding a program like WIC (high-protein foods for expectant mothers) or Head Start, but this thought does not occur to Biden when he is trying to provoke Russia. We can see the cruel elitism of a financier- controlled Obama regime taking place before our eyes. <DT><DT>Obama and Biden resemble each other closely, Both are insufferable windbags besotted with their own rhetorical verbiage. Biden's celebrated gaffes will provide comic relief, as long as they do not gaffe us into World War III, which is always a distinct possibility. Obama and Biden are addicted to the sound of their own voices, and this may turn out to be the fatal flaw that sinks them when the voters get sick of the endless parade of speeches. Obama and Biden are in danger of drowning in their own endless blabber. Each one has more than a touch of megalomania, which prevents them from seeing their limits. Biden's middle name is Robinette, which is close to the term for a faucet tap in French. Biden has never been able to find the tap to turn off his own mouth. <DT><DT>TWO PLAGIARISTS ON THE DEMOCRATIC TICKET <DT><DT>Obama and Biden are both plagiarists; words are their stock in trade, and even the words are fake. It emerged this spring that Obama was spouting verbatim the canned speeches of Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, his fellow clone from the Trilateral stable. Biden is a picaresque paladin of plagiarism. His 1988 presidential campaign was aborted when he was found to have stolen paragraphs of a speech by the Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock. He had also embroidered his campaign biography. Biden had also been guilty of plagiarism at the Syracuse University law school which he attended, but he had somehow talked his way out of those charges. <DT><DT>BIDEN A CREATURE OF THE WORST CREDIT CARD GOUGERS <DT><DT>Biden represents Delaware in the US Senate. Delaware is not a state, but a giant post box for Dupont, General Motors, and many of the giant corporations and Wall Street firms. The state politics of Delaware are dictated down to the most minute detail by the bankers and their corporate lackeys, since everything depends on keeping a pro-oligarchical political climate in the state. Biden personally is a tool of MBNA, a credit card issuer that was recently absorbed by the Bank of America, which presumably now also owns Biden. Biden got at least $215,000 from MBNA over the past decade. MBNA is notoriously one of the biggest predatory lenders and interest rate gougers in the entire usurious world of credit cards, and Biden's services to them are precisely in this area: Biden was a big supporter of the 2005 bankruptcy law which makes it much harder for working families to escape debt bondage and debt slavery * just what the looters at MBNA ordered. Biden has also boasted that he wrote the ban on assault weapons, a measure that is sure to cause problems among the bitter clingers of Appalachia who are concerned about gun ownership. <DT><DT>Obama has voted for the rotten compromise on FISA illegal wiretaps ordered by Bush that grants retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Biden is also an enthusiastic police state totalitarian. In 1995, after the Oklahoma City false flag bombing, Biden submitted an oppressive police state bill, in many ways a precursor of Bush's infamous Patriot Act. "I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing," boasts Biden. "And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill." Biden's only regret is that he was not able to undermine political freedom as much as he wanted to. <DT><DT>Obama's drooling acolytes have argued all summer that to name Senator Clinton to the ticket would negate Barky's profile of youth, change, hope, and so forth. Clinton has been a national figure for almost twenty years, but she has been dumped in favor of Biden, who has been in the US Senate for about 36 years and is about as stale and hackneyed as a political figure could be. The difference is that Biden's track record established him as an obedient servant of the Wall Street banks that have their post box headquarters in his state; the Clintons, by contrast, represent the closest thing we have to political combination not wholly owned by Wall Street and capable of saying no to the bankers when they demand austerity and aggression, as they are assuredly doing now. Rockefeller and Soros do not want Sen. Clinton in the presidential succession under any circumstances, and this is an important positive qualification for the New York senator. <DT><DT>BEAU BIDEN, THE CORRUPT ATTORNEY GENERAL OF DELAWARE <DT><DT>Joe Biden's son is Beau Biden, the current attorney general of Delaware. Beau is involved in one of the dirtiest enemies' list operations in recent memory against Larry Sinclair, who has come forward with explosive charges of gay sex and crack cocaine use in 1999 on the part of Obama. When Sinclair came to the National Press Club in Washington on June 18 to make his case, he was arrested on a trumped-up warrant issued by Beau Biden. Sinclair is being threatened with a long jail term, essentially because he has spoken out against Obama. It was a clear bid to do a favor for Barky and get Joe Biden on the ticket in the veep slot. That has now occurred * on the basis of a police state operation against an outspoken political opponent which goes beyond Nixon or Bush- Cheney, since Obama is not yet president and may well never be. <DT><DT>The Biden announcement was thoroughly botched and bungled by Axelrod, Plouffe, and Favreau. The text message gimmick is drawn straight from the Kiev Orange revolution of 2004 and the Tiflis Roses revolution of 2003, the models for Obama's attempt to seize power. The proceedings were a carnival of gaffes and Freudian slips, all ignored by Obama's loyal brigade of media whores. According to Barky, Joe Biden would help enact "a new energy policy to freeze ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil" * a chilling prospect. <DT><DT>"BARACK AMERICA" AND OTHER FREUDIAN SLIPS <DT><DT>Barky made another revealing Freudian slip: "the next President the next Vice President * Joe Biden." Does Barky know that Biden will act as his resident in-house controller? Biden, evidently mindful that he will have to sell the radical subversive Obama as a wholesome product of the heartland, returned the gaffe by calling the presumptive nominee "Barack America" or "Barack American." Perhaps he was trying to imitate the old Subliminal Man of Saturday Night Live, but was too slow. <DT><DT>Behind Barky's Freudian slip is the fact that Biden will evidently run foreign policy for the clueless Obama in much the same way that Brzezinski ran foreign policy above and behind Carter, or that Cheney has run foreign policy above and behind Bush. Obama is so ignorant and cognitively impaired that he could hardly understand the instructions that bankers' spokesmen like Brzezinski and Soros will be shouting to him on the phone. This is where an experienced hack like Biden is needed. The media, in a transparent attempt to portray an apostolic succession for Biden, are still feeding the illusion that Biden was chosen by Caroline Kennedy. In reality, the choice was probably made by Trilateral-Bilderberg operative Jim Johnson, who was forced to retreat from his announced role as The Vetter by revelations about a sweetheart mortgage, but probably just kept going behind the scenes. <DT><DT>The Obama campaign has repeated ad nauseam its mantra that McCain is running for Bush's third term. McCain has answered that Obama is running for Jimmy Carter's second term. The reality may be that Joe Biden is running for Dick Cheney's third term as the resident controller of a lazy and shallow puppet president * Obama, the Manchurian candidate of the Trilateral Commission. <DT><DT>Webster G. Tarpley is the author of Obama: The Postmodern Coup, and Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography, both published by Progressive Press of California. </DT></DL></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></CENTER>